| GeoGods |
Posted
on 04-Aug-02 07:08 PM
Human Trafficking via Kathmandu:
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/international/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?a0455_BC_CamelRacer&&news&newsflash-international
Sohel Ahmed, a villager from Dhala, said he sold family land and property to pay Bichu for finding him a job in Dubai. Ahmed said he was told to travel to the Middle East via Nepal. His story was similar to Ali's.
Sohel said that when he arrived, he was given a child to take along to Dubai. And he was told to instruct the child to call him "Baba," which is Bengali for "father."
"I realized I had gotten myself involved with a child trafficking gang," said Ahmed, one of several people scheduled to testify against Bichu. "I got scared and said no."
Not everyone does. This is a country where more than 40 percent of the people live below the poverty line and 35 percent are unemployed, so a payoff from trafficking can be alluring.
The most popular child trafficking route out of Bangladesh is the one that Ali described: over the loosely policed frontier with India's northeastern Assam or Tripura states, then overland to Katmandu for a flight to the Middle East.
"It's easy to get a visa to Nepal," said Salma Ali at the Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association. "And nobody cares in Katmandu how many Bangladeshis fly from there to the Middle East."
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